Myrna Mattaring, a retired scientist who worked in diagnostic labs, claims that COVID-19 vaccines caused a 1432% increase in cancer cases, a clearly impossible claim. Here I make a plea for examining such claims, including a much more famous and accepted one, with basic math.
When last I wrote about Elle Macpherson, she was dating Andrew Wakefield. I now learn that she treated her breast cancer with quackery. One more time, antivax and quackery are inseparable, and portraying the choice of quackery as “brave” is irresponsible.
A week and a half ago, Stanford University announced a conference on pandemic policy that features several of the usual suspects who spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Truly, Stanford has become the “respectable” academic face of efforts to undermine public health.
Yesterday, antivaxxer turned independent Presidential candidate RFK Jr, suspended his campaign and backed Donald Trump, to the surprise of no one. Almost certainly, there was a quid pro quo.
Ever since COVID-19 first emerged in 2020, evidence-free claims that it had arisen due to a “lab leak” have proliferated and caused as much harm as antivax. A recent paper argues that this conspiracy theory has been very harmful to science. I argue that it’s more than just lab leak that is harmful.
